From afar

          it melts into the brush.

Thick, thorny weeds

          ravage its pitiful landscape.

It is forbidding terrain,

          with a pothole landmine and shattered windows,

          looking like gouged eye sockets.

Eternal no-man’s-land.

But wait.

An abandoned archway

          covered with flower remnants.

It beckons with some haughty grace.

It is...elegant.

And there, there is a swinging door,

          clinging to existence by a single, rusted hinge.

Its squeaks are defiant.

To an onlooker, the sound is meager.

But to the animal inhabitants of the house,

          they are the thunderous pounding of drums,

          the rumbling solo of a solider wounded in battle